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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27033391">Mirci'vod</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/InvisibleSilence/pseuds/InvisibleSilence'>InvisibleSilence</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The Mandalorian Entanglement [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>By our standards, Death Watch (Star Wars), Death Watch is Evil, F/M, Female Obi-Wan Kenobi, Imprisonment, It's talked about but not shown, Mandalorian Culture (Star Wars), Mando'a Language (Star Wars), Non-Graphic Rape/Non-Con, Obi-Wan Kenobi's First Trip to Mandalore, She considers herself of age, Underage Rape/Non-con, Young Obi-Wan Kenobi, cellmates, not between main characters</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 17:48:35</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>14,706</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27033391</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/InvisibleSilence/pseuds/InvisibleSilence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The first thing Jango noticed about his new cellmate was that she was kriffing tiny. </p><p>The second thing he noticed was that she had beskar manacles on her wrists and ankles, along with the thickest slave collar he’d ever seen around her neck.</p><p>The third thing he noticed was that she was only wearing a tattered shirt that was far too big for her and had blood and other fluids running down her legs.</p><p>“Have fun with her, Fett,” one of the hut’uune mocked. “The boss thought you might want a laandur jetii to keep you company for a bit, since you’re never going to see the light of day again.”</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Future Jango Fett/Obi-Wan Kenobi, Jango Fett &amp; Obi-Wan Kenobi</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The Mandalorian Entanglement [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1944466</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>86</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>1028</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Sol'yc Tuur</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>WARNING: This fic involves a minor who has been raped. The rape is not shown, but the characters do talk about it. An OC's suicide is also talked about, but not shown.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The first thing Jango noticed about his new cellmate was that she was kriffing <em>tiny</em>. The trio of guards who brought her in – two standing in the doorway, blasters aimed at his head, and a third who was dragging her limp body into the cell – all dwarfed her easily.</p><p>The second thing he noticed, as the guard roughly yanked her arms above her head, was that she had beskar manacles on her wrists and ankles, along with the thickest slave collar he’d ever seen – and he’d seen a lot, in his six months as a slave – around her neck. There was definitely an explosive packed in that thing, and, judging by her occasional twitches, it doubled as a shock collar. Jango held back a wince when he caught sight of how the collar’s lock had been melted, fresh burns visible around it. The length of the chain connecting her manacles to the wall was long enough that her arms wouldn’t be pinned above her head, but it wasn’t long enough that she could get within a meter of the cell door. Whatever the girl had done, she’d made their captors exceptionally paranoid about preventing her escape. Jango couldn’t say much. They’d taken the same measures in restraining him, and he’d still managed to kill seven different Death Watch members – in full armor – in the months he’d been in their company.</p><p>The third thing he noticed was that she was only wearing a tattered shirt that was far too big for her and had blood and other fluids running down her legs.</p><p>His blood ran cold. While he and his buir and the rest of the True Mandalorians had been relatively sure that Kyr’tsad was hutuun’la enough to rape their victims, along with murdering and robbing them, they hadn’t had any proof that Arla’s case wasn’t an isolated incident. He did now.</p><p>“Have fun with her, Fett,” one of the hut’uune mocked. “The boss thought you might want a laandur jetii to keep you company for a bit, since you’re never going to see the light of day again.”</p><p>Jango bared his teeth in a terrifying grin.</p><p>“I wouldn’t be too sure about that,” he snarled. The Death Watch idiots – cowards all – backed out of the cell rapidly.</p><p>Once he was sure they were actually gone, he turned to his new cellmate. His first observation was correct; the girl – she wasn’t more than twenty Standard, and he doubted more than fifteen – was at least a quarter-meter shorter than he was, probably more. It was hard to tell, considering the crumpled position the guards had left her in. She was paler than Jango, and thin in a way that suggested she hadn’t been eating well for a while. Her hair was in some sort of hairdo pinned up on her head – how it was still intact, he didn’t know. He wasn’t sure what color her hair was due to the dim light of the cell, since the only light sources were out in the hall. Death Watch was big on making their prisoners miserable.</p><p>He knew that they were hoping – possibly even expecting – him to rape her as well, to help break her spirit. He would never rape someone, and he reluctantly took simply killing her off the table as well. She was a jetii, just like those who had slaughtered his people at Galidraan, but he hadn’t seen any jetii with her size or coloring, and it seemed like it would be noticeable. She was also just a kid, and definitely didn’t deserve what Death Watch had done to her. He’d only kill her if she broke and begged him to.</p><p>His assessment of his new cellmate complete, he went back to his chosen entertainment for the day – seeing how many verses of <em>Dha Werda Verda</em> he could remember. While only the main two were traditionally performed by the Mando’ade, there were actually over a hundred verses in all. He’d memorized all of them at one point as part of his training as the future Mand’alor, but performing the entire thing took nearly a full day and was therefore rarely done. He was muttering the words under his breath and going through the ritual dance in his head in order to pass the time. He’d gotten bored of stewing over his hatred of Kyr’tsad and the Jetiise months ago.</p><p>He didn’t actually realize that his new cellmate had woken up until the clanking of the chains alerted him of her movement.</p><p>Jango looked over from where he’d been facing the door to see that the girl had backed herself into the furthest corner from him, knees drawn up to her chest and arms wrapped tightly around them. She was staring at him with wide, fearful eyes.</p><p>“Udesii,” he said gently, before realizing a jet’ika probably didn’t know Mando’a. “Calm down. It’s okay. I’m not going to hurt you.”</p><p>She blinked at him before saying, “Ni vercopaani nu’gar ven cuyi takisyc meh nu’ni urmankala gar.” <em>I hope you will not be insulted if I do not believe you</em>.</p><p>Jango winced. While her Mando’a was functionally correct – if completely bizarre sounding in an upper-class Coruscanti accent – it sounded like she was reading out of a textbook. Mando’ade didn’t talk like that. If she tried to speak Mando’a on the street, she’d be instantly outed as aruetii – even if she managed to get rid of the horrific accent.</p><p>“No, I understand why you wouldn’t believe me right away,” Jango said, trying to keep the gentle tone. “But I’m not going to hurt you. I’m a prisoner here, too.”</p><p>Even in the dim lighting, he could see the darkness in her eyes when she said, “That doesn’t necessarily mean anything.”</p><p>Right. Jetii, and probably a field one if she’d ended up in a position where Kyr’tsad could capture her. She’d seen the dark parts of the world before. She might have even heard what the guards said before they left – incapacitated didn’t necessarily mean unconscious, even if she’d looked it.</p><p>“My name is Jango,” he said, switching topics, though he still tried to be gentle. “What’s yours, jet’ika?”</p><p>She winced at the sign that he knew what she was. That had probably worried her more. The Jetiise and the Mando’ade didn’t have the best of histories, after all, especially recently.</p><p>Then her eyes widened. She asked cautiously, “Jango? Jango Fett, ad be’Mandalor?”</p><p>Jango’s mouth tightened involuntarily, but he nodded.</p><p>The girl ducked her head, then said, “Par te Jetiise, ni ceta at gar, Jango Fett be to Haat Mando’ade. Te Jetiise ru cuyi ne’serim. Gar adate ru nari naas neduumyc. Te Jetiise ru nari ures ani kar’tayl, bal bid cuyi jii demagolkase. Mhi ru ceta at gar buir, bal at ani te Haat Mando’ade, a mhi ru cuyi kebbu ar’eyir gar, bid mhi ru curi nari ceta at gar balyc bal yaimpa gar at gar yaim.” <em>For the Jedi, I kneel to you, Jango Fett of the True Mandalorians. The Jedi were wrong. Your people did nothing illegal. The Jedi acted without complete information, and so have become war criminals. We knelt to your father, and to all the True Mandalorians, but we have been trying to find you so that we could kneel to you as well and return you to your home.</em></p><p>Jango blinked when he realized what she was truly saying. The Jetiise were trying to <em>apologize.</em></p><p><em> She </em>was trying to apologize on behalf of the Jetiise even though she was a kid and most certainly had nothing to do with it. She hadn’t ducked her head; she was bowing to him.</p><p>“You don’t need to apologize for what your people did,” Jango said. “Your Order damn well needs to apologize, but you weren’t there, you didn’t make the decisions, so you have nothing to apologize for.”</p><p>“I was supposed to be there,” the girl said quietly. “My Master and I would have been part of the Galidraan strike team, but I’d caught pneumonia, so I was confined to the Temple, and my master stayed with me.”</p><p>“You weren’t there, though,” Jango said. “You didn’t do anything wrong, ad’ika. I’m not going to hurt you just because your Order wronged me. I give you my word that I will not hurt you.”</p><p>The girl finally looked up at him.</p><p>“I cannot say that I will automatically trust you,” she said slowly, “but I will give you the benefit of the doubt.”</p><p>“Great,” Jango said. “Think you can tell me your name now, kid?”</p><p>“I’m not a kid,” the girl said, so quickly that Jango suspected it was something she had to say a lot. “And my name is Obi-Wan Kenobi.”</p><p>“Nice to meet you, Obi-Wan,” Jango said. “If you’re not a kid, then how old are you?”</p><p>“Seventeen? Probably? My birthday was soon, but tracking days hasn’t really been a priority lately,” she said apologetically.</p><p>Kriff. By Mandalorian law, yes, seventeen wasn’t <em>technically </em>a kid, especially when a lot of Mando’ade still got married at sixteen, but by his standards, seventeen was definitely still a kid. Most places still considered seventeen to be a kid.</p><p>“Uh, the Jetiise are based on Coruscant. I’m pretty sure Core-legal is eighteen,” Jango pointed out.</p><p>The girl looked disgruntled.</p><p>“The Order is a microstate separate from the laws of Coruscant. The laws of interactions between the Republic and the Order mean that I’m considered a legal adult no matter where in the Republic I go, since the Order counts me as a legal adult.”</p><p>“What age does Order consider adulthood?” Jango asked.</p><p>“Thirteen. Same as the Mandalorians.”</p><p>“Just because they’re <em>legally</em> adults doesn’t mean we treat them as adults!” Jango said.</p><p>The girl blinked.</p><p>“We’re not. I’m still a Padawan, a learner. I don’t have full adult status until I’m a Knight but considered enough of an adult that I don’t appreciate being called a kid. I’m almost Core-legal anyway. Besides, if I remember correctly, <em>you </em>started serving as your father’s second when you were fifteen or sixteen.”</p><p>She had a point. He didn’t really have a point about her being too young to be in the field when he’d been in the field at the same time.</p><p>“I was never alone though,” he replied. “I was always with a company of older verde. Aren’t jet’ika supposed to have older jetii with them?”</p><p>“I’m a senior Padawan, which means I’m allowed to go off on my own,” Obi-Wan shot back. “My master and I split up in order to get Death Watch off the Duchess’ trail.”</p><p>“Duchess?” Jango asked.</p><p>“Duke Kryze was killed by Death Watch,” Obi-Wan said apologetically. “A couple months ago, I think. It’s all-out war, now. A few days after the truth behind Galidraan came out, the Clans started an all-out war. Duke Kryze requested Jedi protection for his heirs since House Kryze holds civil leadership over the Mandalore sector. My Master and I landed on Mandalore on the 33<sup>rd</sup> of the second month. We went on the run on the 18<sup>th</sup> of the third, which is when Duke Kryze was killed. Saren Kryze betrayed his family for Death Watch and is claiming the Dukedom. If my birthday has passed, that was two months ago.”</p><p>“I’ve been here four months?” Jango asked.</p><p>“I would assume,” Obi-Wan said. “Have you been moved at all?”</p><p>“Not that I’m aware of,” Jango said, “but I was out of it for a while after Galidraan and drugged at some other point. All I remember is being on Galidraan, then being thrown in here. But your <em>Master</em>,” he couldn’t help but sneer that last word, “just left you alone?”</p><p>“We split up,” Obi-Wan repeated. “My Master and Duchess Satine went one way. I took Duchess Katan-Ai a different way.”</p><p>Jango blinked. It took him a second to place the name of Adonai Kryze’s second wife. They hadn’t actually been married that long; Duchess Ruusaan had only died a year or two ago, and Adonai Kryze had scandalously married Katan-Ai Indabi, his Stewjoni veriduur, only a few months later. Politically, it didn’t change much. Katan-Ai Kryze knew that the clans didn’t particularly like her, especially since she had been Adonai Kryze’s mistress for longer than he’d been married to Ruusaan Rook, and she’d never been formally adopted as a Mandalorian or sworn the Resol’nare. However, Katan-Ai Indabi <em>was </em>the mother of the youngest Kryze daughter, which made her a part of the family whether or not little Kryze was considered legitimate by Core-standards (she wasn’t). Speaking of…</p><p>“Where’s Lady Katan-Ai now?” Jango asked. “And what about her daughter, little Kryze? Whatever her name is,” he said under his breath, but the jet’ika still heard.</p><p>“Bo-Katan,” Obi-Wan said. “She’s upstairs. The so-called <em>Duke</em>,” she spat, “is keeping her here like some sort of pet. She said she hadn’t been harmed, and she’s been fed and treated well. I hope that doesn’t change,” she said with a wince. “Lady Katan-Ai…When we were captured, Death Watch took us straight to Saren Kryze. He…it was very obvious that he wanted her only for what Stewjoni are known for,” she said softly. “Lady Katan-Ai demanded to know about Bo-Katan before she would submit. Saren had Bo-Katan brought down, allowed them to embrace and speak for a few minutes before the guards took Bo-Katan upstairs. Then, before Saren could do anything else, Lady Katan-Ai spat in his face, said she’d never submit to him, and stole his knife to slit her own throat.”</p><p>Jango’s eyes widened.</p><p>“The girl didn’t see?” he demanded.</p><p>“Not the suicide,” Obi-Wan said, “but she did see her mother’s body. After Katan-Ai killed herself, I tried to break away, and was succeeding, mind you, until Saren had Bo-Katan brought back in with a blaster under her chin and a knife at her stomach. I couldn’t stop more than one weapon at once. He told me to submit or he’d do everything he planned to do to Katan-Ai to Bo-Katan. She’s only eleven. I couldn’t…Bo-Katan was already screaming. She started screaming as soon as she saw her mother’s body and didn’t really stop. I could still here her screaming as they dragged her away, after they locked the collar around my neck. Stars, I hope she doesn’t do anything stupid. I hope <em>Saren </em>doesn’t do anything stupid.”</p><p>“I saw my parents’ bodies when they were killed by Death Watch,” Jango said grimly. “She’ll never forget it. Could she tell her mother killed herself?”</p><p>“I had moved the knife by that point,” Obi-Wan said. “But Saren might have told her. He was…very angry. You could almost taste how much he was lusting after Lady Katan-Ai. If he hadn’t had someone else to take his rage out on, he probably would have hurt Bo-Katan anyway. But, well,” she gave a small shrug. “I’m Stewjoni too.”</p><p>Jango felt himself wincing in sympathy. Stewjoni didn’t often leave their homeworld, but when they did, they oftentimes did so as high-class courtesans, whether by choice or enslavement. There wasn’t much outside information on Stewjoni, but they were considered the peak of Human beauty. He and the Haat Mando’ade had run across Stewjoni slaves before. What people did to them when the Stewjoni in question didn’t have a choice…it wasn’t pretty. What happened to his cellmate was probably just as bad.</p><p>“Shabuir Kryze did it himself?” he asked, nodding towards her body.</p><p>She tensed up, wrapping her arms tighter around herself.</p><p>“It wasn’t just him,” she said, almost too quietly for him to hear. “But he watched even when he wasn’t participating. He kept calling me Katan-Ai. He hates her, hates his father for loving her more than his mother, hates his twin for not hating them too. He didn’t seem to notice Bo-Katan as more than a pet – he even patted her on the head. She’s too young to really have his notice, thankfully. I pray that he doesn’t touch her.”</p><p>“Touching ade is against every taboo Mando’ade have,” Jango said. “Children are precious.”</p><p>“I don’t think Saren cares,” Obi-Wan said quietly, almost too quietly for Jango to hear.</p><p>They didn’t talk again for a while. After several minutes of silence, Jango went back to the fifty-seventh verse of <em>Dha Werda Verda</em>. He’d made it to the sixty-sixth before Obi-Wan asked, “What are you reciting?”</p><p>“<em>Dha Werda Verda</em>,” he replied. “The Mandalorian version, which is in Mando’a, obviously.”</p><p>She tilted her head.</p><p>“I thought that there were only two verses of the Mandalorian version, but I counted nine that you’ve done, and I’m relatively certain you were reciting before I woke up as well.”</p><p>“Only the main two are typically performed, but there’s over a hundred,” Jango explained.</p><p>“I think every Coruscanti schoolchild has to memorize the ninth chapter of the Notron Cant version,” Obi-Wan said. “We use it as memorization practice in the crèche, since many Jedi run into diplomatic situations where they have to memorize and recite words that they don’t know for diplomatic purposes.”</p><p>“Can you still do it?” Jango asked curiously.</p><p>“Booten wooten lanlock vootem/Al a sinkee dunken pooten/Achta werda verda roll/Poonka dunkee loten cho,” the jet’ika said in a sing-song. “I’ve never heard the Mandalorian version.”</p><p>“Taung sa rang broka Mando’ade kar’ta. /Dha Werda Verda a’den tratu/Mando’yaim kandosii adu,” Jango chanted.</p><p>Obi-Wan tilted her head.</p><p>“The ash of the Taung beats strong within the heart of the Mandalorians. We are the fury of the Shadow Warriors, the indomitable children of Mandalore,” she translated.</p><p>“Not the usual translation, but close enough,” Jango said. “<em>Dha Werda Verda </em>is in really archaic Mando’a, so good job.”</p><p>“So, like someone trying to translate Old Galactic Standard when they’re new to Basic?” Obi-Wan asked.</p><p>“More like Mid-Galactic Standard,” Jango said. “Less Bothese. And Durese.”</p><p>“I wouldn’t mind those,” Obi-Wan said. “I speak Bothese and Durese.”</p><p>“Really?” Jango asked in surprise. “And you understand Mando’a?”</p><p>“Most Jedi grow up speaking a dozen languages, or more,” Obi-Wan said. “The Jedi do their best to make sure no one loses their native culture, so we all grow up with our native languages alongside Galactic Basic, and considering we grow up in groups of fifteen to twenty people…we all learn a lot. Then my Master – my teacher,” she corrected, “and I are a diplomatic team, so we often have to be able to understand our hosts’ native language, which usually involves learning it in-transit. I speak quite a few languages, and understand even more. Though,” she said wryly, “we often miss colloquialisms and unofficial speech patterns, so we’re normally advised to simply listen until we can speak with the proper accent and wording.”</p><p>That made her earlier Mando’a attempts make more sense. Jango raised an eyebrow before realizing she might not be able to see it in the dim light.</p><p>“The Jedi spy on their hosts?” he asked.</p><p>“If they don’t ask if we speak their language, we don’t ask if they just assume we don’t,” she replied, sounding as though butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth.</p><p>Jango barked out a laugh.</p><p>“Tricky, Jet’ika,” he said approvingly. “Do our current hosts know you understand Mando’a?”</p><p>“I doubt it,” she replied. “I’m very good at not reacting.”</p><p>Jango felt his amusement evaporate at the reminder of just what she was not reacting to. When she didn’t say anything, he resumed his chanting, though he did it a little louder so that she could hear it better.</p><p>After he completed the hundred-and-twenty-fifth-and-final verse, he said, “You should probably try to get some rest, if you can.” He hesitated a moment, then pulled off his short-sleeved overtunic. His long-sleeved undertunic still kept all of his skin covered. He tossed it over to her. She caught it clumsily.</p><p>“It’s not clean,” he apologized, “but it’ll be warmer for you.”</p><p>“Won’t you get cold?” she asked, fingering the fabric.</p><p>“It’ll be warmer if we share body heat,” Jango said bluntly. “I thought you’d be more comfortable with that if you had more clothing.”</p><p>Her fingers froze on the fabric.</p><p>“I swore I would not hurt you,” Jango reminded her. “I will swear it again, on the graves of my parents, Jarki and Mirda Fett, who were murdered by those who now hold us captive.”</p><p>Her eyes were glued to him, looking for tells. He sat still, trying to show he was telling the truth.</p><p>“I believe you,” she said slowly, before carefully setting his shirt aside and pulling her too-big one down her body.</p><p>Jango turned his head, but not soon enough to avoid seeing the red marks on her chest. Some of them looked like bitemarks.</p><p>“I’m decent,” she said a moment later.</p><p>He turned back to her. She’d tied her too-big, short-sleeved shirt around her waist, giving herself a long skirt that fell past her knees. His overshirt went halfway to her knees – unsurprising, considering how small she was – but wasn’t as loose on her shoulders as hers was. His at least stayed on her shoulders, as opposed to falling off of them.</p><p>“I’ll give it back before they take me again,” she said. “They’d probably take it from me, anyway.”</p><p>He didn’t ask how she was sure that they’d come for again. He already knew.</p><p>“We should probably meet in the middle, by the wall,” he offered. “That would give both of us the most give on the chains.”</p><p>She nodded and scooted over to meet him. Now that she was closer, Jango could see details that he had missed before. Her hair was a darker shade of red, which he should have known as soon as she said she was Stewjoni. He was right about how much shorter she was; he pegged her at <em>barely </em>one-point-five meters, maybe a hair more. Her pale skin was darkened by bruises, along with heavy bags under her eyes caused by sleep deprivation, not fists. There was dried blood near her hairline – he would guess her head had been slammed into the ground – and more dried blood around her mouth, across her chin and cheeks.</p><p>“What happened there?” he asked, nodding towards her face. “I don’t see any cuts.”</p><p>“It’s not mine,” she said shortly. “Tre Vizsla thought it would be a fun idea to stick his phallus in my mouth. I made it so he doesn’t have one anymore.”</p><p>Jango blinked.</p><p>“You bit his dick off?” he asked, forcing down the reflex to cross his legs in front of his own genitals.</p><p>There was fire in her eyes. Jetii or not, this girl had a spine made of beskar.</p><p>“I’ll do the same to you if you try it,” she said fiercely. “Attempt to hurt me and I’ll make you regret it. I killed six Death Watch commandos with my bare hands – after they disarmed me, before they threatened Bo-Katan.”</p><p>“You’ve got mandokarla, jet’ika,” Jango said. “You’ll have riduurok and kir’manok offers aplenty when we get out of here.”</p><p>“Riduurok is marriage, correct?” she asked, watching him out of the corner of her eye as he moved to lay down on the cold ground beside her. “What’s kir’manok?”</p><p>“Adoption,” Jango replied. She slowly laid down as well. Jango made sure that he was between her and the cell door. “The ceremony is known as the gai bal manda, but the act itself is kir’manok. Would you prefer to be facing each other, or facing in the same direction? Facing opposite directions would be a counter-productive.”</p><p>“Same direction,” Obi-Wan said. “I suspect you intend to be a gentleman and place yourself between me and the door?”</p><p>“You’re smaller than I am, jet’ika,” he said bluntly. “And they like to wake prisoners up by kicking them. Four months of captivity or not, I’ve still got more muscle than you do.” He didn’t add that they were sure to hurt her again anyway, in ways he couldn’t protect her from, so he’d protect her from this little harm at the least. He suspected she realized it anyway.</p><p>He hadn’t been able to protect his sister from Kyr’tsad. Arla had only been fourteen – technically an adult, but not really an adult. He’d been even younger. It hadn’t mattered to Death Watch. They’d hurt her, much like they were hurting Obi-Wan now, and nothing had stopped them until Arla herself had managed to breakaway when they’d faced each other on the battlefield, five years after they were separated. Seeing him again, on the other end of the battlefield, had been the impetus she’d needed to break free of Kyr’tsad’s brainwashing. She’d saved Jaster’s life that day, and had never gone back to the tortures she’d known before.</p><p>“Facing the wall then?” Obi-Wan asked, drawing him out of the memory of his first battle. “So that they hit your back instead of your stomach or chest?”</p><p>“That’s right, jet’ika,” Jango said, pushing Korda Six to the back of his mind. He started moving to wrap himself around her when a familiar rippled pattern on her collar caught his eye.</p><p>“Is that…did they melt beskar around this?” he demanded.</p><p>“I told you,” she said quietly, “I killed six commandos with my bare hands and no access to the Force. They weren’t risking me being able to use it again. They destroyed my lightsaber too.”</p><p>She sounded more upset about that than she had been about being raped.</p><p>“I’m guessing it’s more than just your fancy laser-sword getting destroyed?” he asked.</p><p>“A Jedi’s lightsaber…it’s more than just a tool, or a weapon. It’s a symbol of our commitment to the Order, and it’s often the most personal thing we own. There’s a common saying from Masters to Padawans: Your lightsaber is your life. We’re – some people call Jedi space monks. We tend to be ascetic in terms of personal possessions. Most of the time, our lightsaber is the most valuable and most precious thing we own.”</p><p>“I guess it’s a bit like a Mando’s armor,” Jango said, lying down from where he’d been up on one elbow, examining the collar. This close, the burns on her neck looked worse. Hopefully Saren would decide to ‘waste’ bacta on her in order to keep his pretty new Stewjoni veriduur from dying of sepsis. “It’s a dishonor if we lose it. We have to fight to get it back.”</p><p>Obi-Wan turned to look at him over her shoulder, her expression worried.</p><p>“The Jedi returned your armor to the Mand’alor after it was found in the governor of Galidraan’s palace,” she said worriedly. “Should we have not done that?”</p><p>“Don’t worry, jet’ika,” he said. “That just means I’ll have to face my father or one of his lieutenants in the battle circle in order to get it back. It’s just a spar,” he added quickly, noting the worried look on her face.</p><p>He tapped her cheek to get her to turn her head back around before wrapping his arm around her. She tensed up against him.</p><p>“Get some rest, Obi-Wan. They’ll be back in the morning,” he instructed. He closed his eyes and did his best to even out his breathing.</p><p>The girl remained tense in his arms for several minutes before slowly relaxing when he didn’t move to hurt her. Jango wasn’t sure which of them fell asleep first.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Mando'a translations (the short ones that I didn't already translate):<br/>mirci'vod - cellmate (literally, prisoner-sibling)<br/>sol'yc tuur - first day<br/>Buir - Parent (Father, in this case)<br/>hutuun'la - cowardly<br/>hut'uune - cowards<br/>laandur - delicate, fragile; pathetic if used as an insult (in this case, it's the latter)<br/>jetii - Jedi (singular)<br/>Dha Werda Verda - The Warriors of the Shadow<br/>Mando'ade - Mandalorians; children of Mandalore<br/>Mand'alor - leader of the Mandalorians; Anglicized (Basicized?) as Mandalore<br/>Kyr'tsad - Death Watch<br/>jetiise - Jedi (plural, also refers to the Jedi Order)<br/>udesii - calm down<br/>jet'ika - little Jedi/Padawan<br/>ad be'Mand'alor - child (son) of the Mandalore<br/>ad'ika - little one<br/>verde - warriors<br/>veriduur - courtesan<br/>shabuir - extremely insulting version of 'jerk'<br/>ade - children<br/>mandokarla - the right stuff<br/>riduurok - marriage<br/>kir'manok - adoption<br/>gai bal manda - name and soul, Mandalorian adoption ceremony<br/>beskar - Mandalorian iron</p><p>In case anyone was wondering, Obi-Wan is still sixteen according to my timeline, but only for three more days. I date Obi-Wan's birthday to be the 15th of the 5th month, and it is currently the 12th of the 5th month in the year 966 After the Ruusan Reformation.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Tuur T'ad</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Jango and Obi-Wan talk some more on their second day as cellmates.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>WARNINGS: Discussions of slavery and rape of minor slaves. Animal cruelty, if it counts as animal cruelty to kill an animal that's trying to kill you. And there's animal cruelty on Death Watch's part.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>His first true battle was just two weeks after his verd’goten, only three weeks after his thirteenth birthday. He’d participated when the Haat Mando’ade were attacked by Kyr’tsad and taken part in the Battle of Concord Dawn, just before Jaster had adopted him, but this time he was going into a battle on his own terms, in his own armor. The armor was a mix of new pieces provided by Jaster and refitted older pieces that had once belonged to his father. The old pieces were all beskar, but some of the new ones were durasteel, since he’d grow out of them soon enough.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>The job was supposed to be simple, generally speaking. The Korda Defense Force hired them to rescue a training squad that had been pinned down by natives. Jaster had assigned him as Myles’ lieutenant, as Myles was in charge of the basic infantry and security squad. Jango knew that his buir was priming him to take that position so that Myles could go back to being his second. Jaster had taken charge of Headhunter Company, while Montross took Vertigo. It was supposed to be an easy mission.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Everything went wrong from the moment they entered atmosphere. One transport was shot down completely, killing everyone aboard. The others had to take evasive maneuvers. Upon landing, they were met by heavy fire. Montross ignored Jaster’s orders to abort the attack on the gun placements, and Vertigo Company only wasn’t annihilated due to Jaster leading Headhunter Company in.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Myles had used the distraction to lead their company to rescue the hostages…only to be met by Death Watch. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>The commando he’d nailed in the stretch of kute between helmet and gorget wasn’t his first kill by a long shot – that had been on Concord Dawn, just after he’d lost his parents and sister. He killed the next three as well with pinpoint shots, before a Death Watch commando grabbed him from behind and did his best to pull Jango’s helmet off. He actually managed, briefly, before Jango turned and shot him through the gut. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Jango grabbed his helmet and jammed it back on his head. He looked around for the next enemy, only to see a Death Watch commando staring at him – probably a female, based on the shape of her cuirass –before turning away towards the other side of the field and taking off.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Jango turned to look that way as well, only to see Jaster, alone, with Montross flying away. His heart leapt up to his throat. Jaster was alone, facing an untold number of enemies. He tried to yell a warning when he saw someone sneaking up on his buir, beskar’kad in one hand and blaster in the other, when the commando who had been staring at him suddenly landed beside him and put a blaster bolt through his skull. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Jaster only spared her a quick look before he went back to fighting, but the unknown woman continued to aid him, firing pinpoint shots with a skill Jango had rarely seen. Jango made his way to the pair and aided them in driving off the enemies that were targeting Jaster – targeting the Mand’alor. It was a fury of blaster bolts and grenades and explosions and the flash of beskar.</em>
</p><p>He woke up to an elbow in his gut. Instinct had him grabbing at the body the elbow came from, until he jerked away enough to recognize who exactly was struggling beneath him.</p><p>“Obi-Wan!” he said. “Jet’ika! You’re okay! It’s Jango! You’re okay, jet’ika, udesii!”</p><p>She stilled.</p><p>“Jango?” she said in a quiet voice.</p><p>“I’m here, jet’ika,” he said, sitting up and pulling her with him to lean against him instead of flailing on the floor.</p><p>Her breathing was heavy, adrenaline fueled. She’d been dreaming, the same as him, though he suspected her dream didn’t have the happy ending his did.</p><p>“What were you dreaming of, jet’ika?” he asked once she’d calmed down a bit. “Kyr’tsad?”</p><p>“No,” she said. “Not them. I…we had a mission. Last year. To Chardaan. We were looking into a suspected smuggling ring going through the shipyards. Judicial hadn’t managed to get their hands on anything, so we went instead. It’s not really my master’s specialty, but it’s one of mine, so we were the team sent, even though we normally go for diplomatic or protection assignments. We’d been on-planet for three weeks when my Master sent me to investigate some of the ships we suspected to be smuggling, to see if I could sneak on and find their internal records.”</p><p>“He sent a <em>sixteen-year-old girl </em>into a smuggler’s ship <em>alone</em>?” Jango hissed.</p><p>“I know how to go unnoticed, and I’m very good at it,” she said. “He wouldn’t have been able to get in and out. I could. And I found out that they weren’t just smuggling weapons, drugs, and cultural artifacts. They were smuggling people too. And the third ship I snuck onto was a slave ship.”</p><p>Jango’s automatically tightened his arms around her. She twitched, but didn’t seem too tense, so he didn’t bother letting go.</p><p>“Did they catch you?”</p><p>“They did,” the jet’ika said, infuriatingly calm. “I wasn’t trying to be unnoticeable, since I was trying to get the kids. Thankfully, they believed me when I said I was a private investigator hired to find one of the kids.”</p><p>Jango raised an eyebrow.</p><p>“You look like you’re twelve,” he pointed out.</p><p>“They said the same thing,” Obi-Wan agreed. “So, I told them that I was Stewjoni and we all looked younger than we were.”</p><p>“You <em>told </em>them you were Stewjoni?” Jango gaped.</p><p>“They were still thinking about killing me instead of adding me to their stock,” Obi-Wan said, still infuriatingly calm. “Stewjoni are expensive. They could have made more off me then the rest of their stock combined. It was the best way to find out more information about the ring without risking the captives or abandoning them to their fate.”</p><p>“Did your jetii <em>master</em>,” he said, unable to keep from sneering the word, “know what you were doing?”</p><p>“No, he was having tea with the Chardaanian governor about corruption in the shipyard security forces,” Obi-Wan explained.</p><p>Jango wanted to punch a jetii he’d never met.</p><p>“So, how did you escape?” he asked instead, wishing he could wrap the tiny jet’ika in blankets and tuck her away from the harder parts of the galaxy for a while. At least long enough for him to punch her so-far-unnamed jetii teacher.</p><p>“I waited,” Obi-Wan said. “The ship took off the same day, which prevented me from escaping immediately, but also presented me with the opportunity to find out who they were working for – the smugglers were unfortunately circumspect and hadn’t logged that information anywhere. Being trapped on the ship simply meant I had the opportunity to become familiar with their operations over the weeks it took to reach their destination. When we arrived, I allowed myself to be sold off – it was a specialized auction just for me, since I was a ‘rare commodity.’”</p><p>She rolled her eyes at the phrase. Jango just wanted to strangle someone again.</p><p>“I waited until my new owner was asleep – or rather, I <em>encouraged</em> him to go to sleep, stole his credentials and a shuttle, made my way back to the slavers’ ship while under his identity, and then staged a slave revolt,” she said simply, as if the entire matter was something people just <em>did</em>. “However, I had access to the Force then, and I’d managed to hide my lightsaber away on the ship, so it was much easier than escaping here will be,” she said with a frown.</p><p>“What did you dream of?”</p><p>Obi-Wan was quiet for a moment.</p><p>“The man who bought me,” she said slowly, “was rich, powerful, and had no compunctions against telling me every single thing he was going to do to me. It was…it was terrifying. As soon as we were alone, I used the Force to put him to sleep and then booked it out of there. I dreamt that somehow, someway, I’d been found out as a Jedi, and when he took me to his bed, I had no way to avoid it, and no way to escape.”</p><p>Jango didn’t know what to say to that. If that experience was terrifying, when she knew she had opportunities to escape before anything happened, when she still had access to the Jetii power, then what must she feel now, with a Force-suppressing collar around her neck and multiple men who had already hurt her and little hope for escape?</p><p>“Who was he?” he finally asked. “The man you bought you,” he clarified once Obi-Wan turned to look at him, brow furrowed in confusion.</p><p>“Crueya Vandron, of House Vandron,” she revealed.</p><p>“From the Senex sector?” Jango asked.</p><p>“That’s the one. He’s the Head of the House, and Senex/Juvex refuses to outlaw slavery…which made it unsurprising that the Chardaan slavers were working with them. I probably shouldn’t visit the sector again anytime soon though,” Obi-Wan admitted.</p><p>Jango resisted the urge to point out that she’d be lucky to leave the Mandalore sector with the way things were progressing.</p><p>“What about you?” she asked, changing the subject without any subtlety. “Did you dream?”</p><p>Jango hesitated, then nodded. “My first battle,” he said. “On Korda Six. It was a Death Watch trap, like Galidraan, but they were more direct in trying to kill us then. And less successful,” he added darkly.</p><p>“It was a success then?” Obi-Wan asked.</p><p>“For the most part,” Jango said. “The goal was to kill Jaster. They would have succeeded, but my sister, Arla, saw my face, realized I was still alive, and turned on Death Watch. She had hostage syndrome,” he explained. “Joined them after a few years of being their prisoner first. She thought her whole family was dead, but she saw me on the battlefield and turned. She protected Jaster and prevented the trap from being successful. She joined the True Mandalorians after that.”</p><p>Obi-Wan frowned.</p><p>“I admit, our briefing on the True Mandalorians wasn’t incredibly detailed, but I don’t think you having a sister was ever mentioned.”</p><p>“She tends to keep quiet about herself,” Jango said. “She never really recovered from what Death Watch made her do, so she stays home and keeps the fires warm. She can fight – she’s a crack shot with a blaster, and the best knife-thrower I’ve ever met.”</p><p>“That sounds useful,” Obi-Wan said. “I think I’d like to learn to throw knives. I can already shoot.”</p><p>“I didn’t think Jetiise knew how to use anything but their jetii’kade,” Jango said.</p><p>“We learn how to use blasters too; we just don’t like them as much. And I didn’t have my lightsaber on Melida/Daan, so I’m better than most of my agemates. But blasters are offensive weapons. Lightsabers can be offensive or defensive, so they’re better suited for peacekeepers.”</p><p>“The jetiise on Galidraan didn’t seem to be peacekeepers,” Jango couldn’t help but grumble.</p><p>“They were…they were wrong, and did not listen to the Force. Several of them are being investigated for being too bloodthirsty or prejudiced against Mandalorians. Well, they might be done by now,” Obi-Wan corrected. “I knew some of them. Some of them were…too quick to attack, to make war instead of peace. They’ll be censored. All of them.”</p><p>“What does censoring look like for a Jedi?” Jango asked.</p><p>“Confinement to the Temple. Restricted access to anyplace but quarters. Required monitoring. <em>Lots </em>of meditation. A censored Knight or Master gets a Temple Guard following them around. A Padawan is expected to be monitored by their Master. Sometimes it’s worse. We have cells too, if they’re deemed necessary. The Temple isn’t exactly a <em>bad </em>place to be confined, after all. I’ve been to planets with smaller capital cities,” Obi-Wan said. “It depends on the severity of the offense.”</p><p>“The Jedi Temple is that big?” Jango asked.</p><p>Before she could elaborate, Obi-Wan cocked her head slightly. Her eyes widened and she began to wiggle out of Jango’s grasp.</p><p>“Guards are coming!” she hissed.</p><p>Jango immediately let her go. He was impressed with how fast she managed to strip his shirt off, pull hers back over her shoulders, and make it to the other side of the cell. His shirt was thrown back at him, hitting him in the face.</p><p>By the time the guards arrived at the door, they were on opposite sides of the cell, Obi-Wan curled up in her corner and Jango glaring from his.</p><p>There were five guards this time. Two stayed outside the door, while the other three entered. The lead kept his blaster pointed at Jango while the other two went for Obi-Wan.</p><p>“Come on, bitch,” one of the guards taunted. “The Duke wants you for some more fun.”</p><p>As they dragged her up, Jango noticed her looking first at him, then at the three guards with blasters raised. She grimaced slightly but allowed herself to be dragged up by the last two guards.</p><p>“Don’t get too settled, Fett,” one of the other guards taunted. “We got a new beast in. You’re going to the ring again today.”</p><p>Jango bared his teeth at the retreating guards, yanking at his chains as he lunged towards them.</p><p>The flinch in fear was worth it, even if the others laughed at him pulling at his chains.</p><p>“See you soon, Fett,” a third guard said.</p><p>Jango waited until they were gone before sitting back down and grimacing. The ring was how Kyr’tsad used him for entertainment. They would throw him in, usually weaponless, sometimes with a knife, and then throw someone else – or something else – in there with him. Only one person made it out alive. Usually they threw him in with other prisoners they’d taken, but they preferred it when they could capture predators and make him fight them instead. Predators came with teeth and claws, which always made for a bloodier match than when he fought them than when he fought other sentients.</p><p>He didn’t let himself be idle while he waited for the guards to return. Jango ran through an abbreviated stretching routine, just to make sure he made it through everything. He then restarted it, going slower this time now that he knew he wouldn’t miss stretching any body parts out simply because the guards came for him too soon.</p><p>In the end, he didn’t need to have worried. He finished the drawn-out version of his stretching routine in plenty of time. He felt almost prepared by the time the guards – five again, but only two of the ones who had come for Obi-Wan – appeared to drag him to the ring. He gave them a quick once-over – he could probably kill one of them, maybe two, but not all five before they hit the remote for his collar and electrocuted him into unconsciousness. Which, he might not have a problem with normally, but starting the day off with electricity-induced unconsciousness was not the best way to prepare for fighting a wild animal with his bare hands.</p><p>His lack of resistance didn’t stop the guards from trying to rough him up a bit as they marched him towards the ring.</p><p>Ring was a bit of a misnomer; the makeshift gladiatorial arena was egg-shaped, with the gate for beasts at the wider end. Jango’s guards dumped him in at the narrow end, unlocking his chains before forcing him to jump down the two meters into the ring.</p><p>The stands were already half-full, with more armored commandos streaming in. It wasn’t long before someone threw a long, pointed stick into the arena. Jango picked it up. It was a primitive spear. It was going to be one of <em>those </em>days.</p><p>He hefted the spear, getting used to the feel of it. If they’d given him a weapon, he was going to need it to survive.</p><p>It was only another minute before the gate at the other end of the arena opened, revealing his opponent of the day.</p><p>“Today, we have in the arena a rare treat! Fett is facing off against a Sriluurian dark wolf!”</p><p>Jango resisted the urge to groan. Sriluurian dark wolves were mostly mammalian, resembling a multitude of other lupine species found across thousands of worlds, with the exception of two things: their claws secreted poison and they had large, stinger-tipped tails that would have looked more appropriate on a scorpion. They were native to Sriluur, and Jango had known several different Weequay who kept them as guard dogs, which didn’t always turn out well. Their stingers could penetrate Weequay skin, which was much harder and thicker than a human’s.</p><p>The gate dropped and the wolf entered the arena.</p><p>The beast was bigger than Obi-Wan, about a meter-and-a-half at the shoulder, with its eyes on a level with Jango’s own. It had dark grey fur over most of its body, with the exception of its face and back. The thick, leathery skin on its back was a lighter shade of grey, while the scorpion-like tail was black until you reached the stinger, which was white as bone. The face of the wolf was white and hairless, giving the creature the impression of having a skull for a head. Its teeth were bared in a vicious snarl.</p><p>Jango readied his spear, and the fight began.</p><p>The thing to remember about fighting animals was that they were almost always smarter than you’d expect. You had to be careful not to underestimate them, but you also couldn’t <em>overestimate</em> them, or none of your tactics would work out.</p><p>Jango had never fought a Sriluurian dark wolf before, but he’d heard the stories. They were intelligent, nocturnal hunters. Their backs were covered with thick, leather-like flesh that protected them from their own stingers. If he remembered correctly, the stingers contained a paralytic but the poison on the claws was simply a weakener. It might be the other way around though, so he’d do his best to avoid both.</p><p>The dark wolf charged first, as Jango expected. The guards tended to make sure that the beasts hadn’t eaten before they faced him. He would either be its dinner or he would kill it, which saved the guards the money spent on food. On one hand, it made the animals more vicious, which was a detriment to him. On the other hand, hungry animals – or people, for that matter – weren’t the most rational of creatures, so it was easier to outsmart them.</p><p>Jango waited until the last moment before jumping out of the way, going into a tight roll to dodge the wolf’s snapping jaws when it turned and lunged faster than Jango expected. He jabbed out with the spear, missing the wolf’s eye but scratching across its face anyway.</p><p>He heard the crowd cheer at the sight of first blood, though not as much as they would have cheered for the blood to be his.</p><p>The wolf growled and lunged again, this time twisting mid-lunge so that its stinger was darting towards Jango instead.</p><p>Jango dodged the stinger but winced when the wolf’s claws scratched across his shoulder. He did feel like he couldn’t move, so he was right about the poison on the claws being the weakener and not the paralytic.</p><p>The crowd cheered again, louder this time. If it wasn’t a distraction, Jango would have rolled his eyes.</p><p>He eyed the wolf as he adjusted the spear in his hand. The wolf was circling him and Jango was turning with it, never letting any part of the beast – tail, jaws, or claws – out of his sight.</p><p>The beast leapt at him. He lunged out of the way and rolled away to avoid the stinger attack that followed.  He stabbed out with the spear and learned the hard way that the plating on the wolf’s tail was too thick for the wooden spear to penetrate.</p><p>The next several minutes consisted of Jango frantically planning while dodging the wolf’s attacks. Thankfully, it did not seem to change tactics: it struck out with its jaws and followed up with its tail or started with its tail and followed up with its claws.</p><p>He waited until the wolf was about to jump again. As it sprung, he ran towards the beast, dropping to his knees and arching backwards to slide under its unprotected belly. He slammed the makeshift spear into where the heart should be, desperately hoping that the beast had similar anatomy to the species he’d hunted before.</p><p>The wolf landed behind him. Jango rolled back onto his feet, twisting around to face it. The wolf had collapsed atop the spear, the bloody end pointing out of its back.</p><p>Jango took several deep breaths as the crowd slowly started to cheer. He knew they were disappointed that he’d killed the beast instead of the beast killing him – they always were. But they were Kyr’tsad, and more bloodthirsty than the average Mando, so they were willing to cheer on the fact that <em>something</em> was dead.</p><p>Jango thought it was a waste, personally. He understood the thrill of the hunt, the thrill of a fight, the desire to throw one’s self into the ring to test skills, but the gladiatorial death matches Kyr’tsad put on were an unnecessary loss of life. The animals weren’t killed for food, fur, or protection. They were killed because Kyr’tsad wanted him dead but found it more humiliating to enslave him.</p><p>He didn’t attempt to reclaim the spear to fight against the guards who came to take him back to his cell. Then he’d be punished by a lack of food and water, and he needed the water after how much he’d sweated. He also didn’t want to negatively impact his new cellmate. He wasn’t sure how far they’d go in hurting her to get to him, and she was already being hurt enough for crimes not her own.</p><p>Unsurprisingly, she wasn’t back in the cell when his guards shoved him back in and reattached his chains to the wall.</p><p>Jango ran through his cool-down exercises as the time passed, before transitioning into the slow katas his buir had once assigned him as an exercise in patience.</p><p>The katas were a variety of traditional martial arts forms, from both early Mando’ade and other cultures, and Jango ran through all of them at half-speed or slower. The emphasis in the exercise was form, the slow tempo giving him time to make the minute adjustments to his body.</p><p>It was – by his best estimate – more than three hours later when the guards reappeared with Obi-Wan. He waited until the guards were gone before slowly moving over to her.</p><p>“Your neck looks better,” he commented. “Did they treat it?”</p><p>“Somewhat,” Obi-Wan said. “Bacta and bandages, until Saren flew into a rage.”</p><p>“What pissed him off this time?” Jango asked.</p><p>Obi-Wan smiled, grim and vicious, white teeth flashing in the dim light.</p><p>“Bo-Katan Kryze is no longer in Kyr’tsad custody,” Obi-Wan said.</p><p>“She escaped?” Jango asked interestedly.</p><p>“She was willingly kidnapped, from what I understand,” Obi-Wan said. “Given, this is all from what I could take from Saren’s ranting, but it seems that Maura Wren was uncomfortable with Saren’s threats against an eleven-year-old girl and absconded with her before she could be harmed.”</p><p>Jango’s brow furrowed.</p><p>“If I remember correctly, she has a daughter around Bo-Katan’s age.”</p><p>“Whatever the reason, Bo-Katan is fine and away from Saren and Saren is extremely unhappy about it,” Obi-Wan said, sounding satisfied. “Maura disappeared with her while you were fighting the dark wolf.”</p><p>Jango winced.</p><p>“You saw that?”</p><p>“I did,” Obi-Wan said. “Saren seems to like keeping me as a pet, trapped at his side. He’d probably keep me there constantly if they weren’t so worried about me escaping.”</p><p>Jango eyed his companion. She was tiny, underfed and didn’t look like much. But he knew that she was vicious in defending herself and others and was so far unbowed by the horrors Saren Kryze was putting her through. She was dangerous enough that she was kept in a cell with the same restraints as himself.</p><p>“So, I guess we should start planning an escape then?” he offered almost casually.</p><p>There was a spark of fire in her eyes.</p><p>“I guess we should.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Mando'a Translations:<br/>Tuur T'ad - Day Two<br/>verd'goten - warrior birth; the Mandalorian rite of passage into adulthood<br/>Haat Mando'ade - True Mandalorians<br/>Kyr'tsad - Death Watch<br/>beskar - Mandalorian iron<br/>kute - bodysuit worn under armor<br/>beskar'kad - sword made of Mandalorian iron<br/>Jet'ika - little Jedi; Padawan<br/>udesii - Calm down!<br/>jetii - Jedi (singular)<br/>Jetiise - the Jedi (plural); referring to every Jedi instead of just multiple Jedi<br/>jetiise - Jedi (plural)<br/>jetii'kade - lightsabers</p><p>Arla had hostage syndrome because Stockholm does not exist in Star Wars, so she couldn't have Stockholm syndrome.</p><p>Sorry this took so long. I spent most of the past month staring at the wolf fight scene and attempting to make it longer. I finally gave up. Jango's good. He can kill a wolf with a scorpion tail relatively quickly.</p><p>Mirci'vod is going to have one more chapter, though I have ten fics total planned for Obi-Wan's time on Mandalore. I might not write all of them in chronological order, but I plan to write them all eventually.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Tuure Ehn, Resol, Ta’raysh Cuir, Ad’eta E’tad, Cur’eta Rayshe’a, bal She’eta She’cu</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Planning an escape from the circumstances they were in was difficult. Executing would be even more so</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>WARNINGS: Referenced rape/sexual abuse of a minor. Nothing that hasn't happened in previous chapters.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Planning an escape from the circumstances they were in was difficult. Executing would be even more so. By their third day as cellmates, Jango managed to concede that Obi-Wan had much more experience in escaping from prison cells than he did and bowed to her expertise in the planning process.</p><p>“The first thing we’ll need to do is disable the collars, or at least jam any transmissions going to them so we <em>can </em>escape without being electrocuted or blown up,” Obi-Wan stated matter-of-factly. “While jamming it would be the easier option, I suspect that we – well, I – will have more luck acquiring the materials to disable them instead.”</p><p>“Why did you take me out of that?” Jango asked.</p><p>She raised an eyebrow at him.</p><p>“Correct me if I’m wrong, but Death Watch only removes you from this cell in order to fight in their gladiatorial arena. You don’t have much of a chance to appropriate materials that would help us escape.”</p><p>That was true enough. He hadn’t been outside the cells and the arena since he’d been brought here – though the more he thought on it, the more he thought that he’d been drugged for a while <em>before </em>being brought here. He faintly remembered a ship, and spice, and none of that would have happened if he’d been brought directly here from Galidraan.</p><p>Besides, it didn’t make sense for that to have happened. Adonai Kryze was still alive when Galidraan happened, had continued being alive for nearly two more months. Kryze the elder was honorable and probably wouldn’t have consented to his imprisonment. Probably.</p><p>Honestly, if he wanted an accurate timeline of the past few months, he’d have to ask Kyr’tsad, and it would be a cold day in the nine Corellian hells before that happened.</p><p>“How are you planning to hide anything you steal?” he asked. She wasn’t exactly clothed most of her time away from the cell, and even if Shabuir Kryze did deign to allow her to dress, it would most likely be clothing meant to enhance, not cover.</p><p>He wasn’t sure how to feel about the gleam in Obi-Wan’s eyes.</p><p>“I have my ways,” she said airily. She sobered quickly. “This isn’t…there’s almost no way that this is going to be fast. I can get us out of the cell, out of the chains, and I can disable the collars, but I can’t get us out of Sundari. I’m not going to be able to fight well.”</p><p>Jango raised an eyebrow.</p><p>“You killed six Death Watch members with your bare hands before you got shoved in here,” he pointed out. “What’s stopping you on the way out?”</p><p>“Besides the malnutrition, sexual abuse, and whatever other tortures Kryze and Death Watch decide to put me through?” Obi-Wan replied. “This.” She gestured to the collar. “Even with the explosives and shock mechanism disabled, it’ll still cut me off from the Force until it’s off my neck. The <em>beskar </em>is melted over that part of the device – it’s the part closest to the lock. The longer it’s gone, the worse it gets.”</p><p>“Not having the Force impairs you that much?” Jango asked.</p><p>“For a Force-sensitive, especially a <em>trained</em> Force-sensitive, cutting them off from the Force is like…it’s like cutting off a limb and a lobotomy all in one. There’s a constant ache where I should be able to connect with the Force but can’t, and if I try too it’s like I’m ripping the wound open all over again. My body doesn’t seem to fit right.” She looked frustrated at her own words. “I’m sorry; this is hard to explain.”</p><p>“I got the losing-a-limb bit, not that I’ve ever lost one,” Jango said. “Maybe elaborate more on the lobotomy part? Is that where your body not fitting right comes in?”</p><p>She nodded.</p><p>“I…Jedi are normally graceful, once they grow into themselves and can manage what they’re sensing in the Force properly. Normally that’s accomplished at a young age, but for those who are precognitive, it can take longer since it sometimes takes time for them to sort out what’s happening <em>now</em> from what’s happening <em>later </em>or even what’s already happened. It can look like clumsiness from the outside. It feels like clumsiness too, when you take a step and trip because you were expecting grass or dirt or lava rock and it turns out you’re on the stairs,” she said with a sigh.</p><p>“You were one of those children?” Jango asked. “You have visions of the future?”</p><p>“Sometimes,” Obi-Wan admitted with a shrug of her shoulder. “Not often, anymore. I haven’t had a major vision since I was…thirteen, I think. Maybe fourteen. It was near my birthday. Most of the time, it’s precognition for me. I just…I just <em>know </em>things sometimes. When I was a child, my clanmates would ask me what they’d go on to be as Jedi, who they’d be apprenticed to…and I could just tell them. I didn’t see anything. I just knew. I still do it, even without realizing it, occasionally, though I’ve mostly got a handle on that.”</p><p>Jango tried to wrap his head around a child <em>knowing </em>things about the future with no explanation. It was minorly terrifying.</p><p>“Were you ever wrong?” he asked.</p><p>“Never,” Obi-Wan said. “If I <em>knew</em> something, I was never wrong. A lot of the Masters thought me arrogant. Some of them still do. I can see why, now that I’m older, but it frustrated me a lot as a child that no one would listen to me when I <em>knew</em> something. It was what I didn’t <em>know </em>that was more dangerous.”</p><p>“How so?” Jango asked.</p><p>Obi-Wan hesitated, then explained, “One of my crèchemates, Bruck, he…I could never answer him. When he asked me who his teacher would be, I couldn’t tell him. I couldn’t tell him if he was going to join one of the Jedi Services Corps. I couldn’t tell him anything. As it turned out, Bruck died when he was twelve, before he could be chosen by a Master or a Service Corps.”</p><p>Jango grimaced.</p><p>“Ade dying is never pleasant. What happened?”</p><p>Obi-Wan grimaced.</p><p>“Bruck…he was scared. He was almost thirteen, and he didn’t know what would happen to him. So when a rich, powerful man from his home planet came to him, claiming to know his father and claiming he was capable of helping Bruck succeed…well, Bruck did as the man asked and made some horrible choices in the process. The man he was helping…he was a former Jedi who had left the Order and fallen into darkness. He was doing his best to destroy as many Jedi as possible for revenge. Bruck…Bruck was protecting something that we needed to save lives. I dueled him. His foot landed on a wet rock, and he slipped and fell. He broke his neck and died on impact,” she said quietly. “Sometimes I wonder if my <em>knowing</em> made things worse. He was the only one I couldn’t answer. Maybe if the others hadn’t had the surety of my knowledge either, he wouldn’t have felt so alone, so desperate.”</p><p>Jango scooted closer to her and wrapped his arm around her shoulders, pulling her towards him. She flinched slightly, but when Jango made to move away, instead moved closer determinedly.</p><p>“It’s not your fault, Ob’ika,” he said. “His choices were his own.”</p><p>“I know that logically, but it’s a lot harder to accept that,” she admitted. She leaned her head to rest on his shoulder. “What were we talking about originally, again?”</p><p>Jango had to think on it as well.</p><p>“Why the suppressant collar feels like a lobotomy,” he finally said.</p><p>“Right,” Obi-Wan said. “New metaphor. Have you ever seen someone trying to eat after a local anesthetic for dental procedures and utterly failing because they can’t feel their entire mouth area?”</p><p>Jango resisted the urge to snicker as the image of Myles doing <em>exactly that</em> filled his head.</p><p>“Yes,” he said. “One of my friends, Myles, had two teeth knocked out during training shortly before Galidraan. Watching him attempt to eat afterwards was <em>hilarious.</em>”</p><p>Obi-Wan nodded.</p><p>“It’s kind of like that, except with my entire body. It’s worse the longer it goes on, because I’m slowly losing the muscle memory. With the muscle memory, I could fight even if I couldn’t feel it, but the longer it goes…I’ll second-guess myself, and if you second-guess yourself in the middle of fighting…”</p><p>“You die,” Jango filled in. “You sure you can acquire the things we need to help us if you feel like that?”</p><p>Obi-Wan looked directly into his eyes before declaring, “I’m sure.”</p><p>“You’re not telling me something,” Jango said.</p><p>“I’m allowed some secrets, I think,” she replied.</p><p>“Not when those secrets impact whether or not we get out of here anytime soon,” Jango pointed out.</p><p>She met his eyes again.</p><p>“Jango,” she said firmly, “I can do this. Just don’t ask me how. Let me do my part, and I’ll let you do yours.”</p><p>“My part would be fighting guards?”</p><p>“And piloting any vehicles we abscond with,” she added. “I’ve never flown Force-suppressed, and considering how Force-sensitives fly instead of how non-sensitives fly…well, it would probably go badly.”</p><p>“I’m almost afraid to ask, but how do Force-sensitives fly?” Jango asked.</p><p>She thought about it for a moment.</p><p>“I’m told that even those of us who are not excellent pilots have a tendency towards maneuvers that would be suicidal for non-sensitives,” she finally said. “Excellent for high-speed chases, no matter what end of them you’re on, bad for ensuring your passengers retain their stomachs. In that situation, I don’t think I’d remember that my reflexes aren’t what I’m used to. Again, I’ve never flown anything while Force-suppressed.”</p><p>“Wait,” Jango said, something dawning in his mind. “Does that you have <em>stolen</em> things while Force-suppressed?”</p><p>“I had a very comprehensive education,” Obi-Wan said. “We should probably get some rest.”</p><p>Jango did not miss that she didn’t answer the question before her not-at-all subtle change of subject, which he supposed was answer enough.</p><p>“You’re probably right,” he agreed. “Hopefully Shabuir Kryze will put some time into actually <em>governing</em> and leave you be for a day.”</p><p>Kryze didn’t leave Obi-Wan alone until day six, at which point Jango showed her his usual exercise routine.</p><p>“Because sitting in a cell for months on end makes you lose strength and stamina,” he explained. “If we’re going to escape, we need to physically be capable of it.”</p><p>“My only exercise recently has been of the carnal sort,” Obi-Wan said wryly, “so I’d be glad to add in whatever routines you’ve been doing. And I can probably run the barehanded katas so I don’t lose <em>all </em>my skill with a lightsaber.”</p><p>“Katas? For your jetii’kad, I presume?”</p><p>“That’s right,” Obi-Wan said. “There are seven different lightsaber forms, though the seventh is restricted. There are dozens upon dozens of variations for each, but the standard katas for Forms I-VI are taught to everyone.”</p><p>“Does everyone use every form, or is specialization more common?” Jango asked.</p><p>“Oh, specialization, certainly,” Obi-Wan said. “My Master prefers Ataru, Form IV, though he’s not well-suited for it given how tall he is. Ataru is the most acrobatic of the forms,” she explained at Jango’s look. “Ataru is best suited for open places where one has room for their acrobatics. My Master is taller than you, and therefore needs more room for the acrobatics. Master Yoda, on the other hand, is less than a meter tall, and is therefore able to utilize Ataru in almost every situation, since most spaces for him count as wide open.”</p><p>“What do you specialize in?” Jango asked.</p><p>“Well, I’m still a student, so my biggest focus is Ataru, like my Master’s, though I think I prefer Soresu, Form III,” Obi-Wan said.</p><p>Jango waited for her to say more. When it seemed she wasn’t going to, he asked, “Why?”</p><p>She ducked her head.</p><p>“Soresu…Soresu is focused on defense. Ataru came after Soresu, with Form V’s two branches, Shien and Djem So, just after. Ataru is the Aggression Form, and Soresu is the Resilience Form. A lot of people don’t have the patience for Soresu. Its focus is survival, not victory. But…I think it’s more important for the greatest number of people to survive than it is to win. Survival means you can fight again. What’s the point in victory if you can’t continue to fight afterwards?” she asked, though it was obvious the question was rhetorical.</p><p>Jango…wasn’t sure what to say to that. Mando’ade were all for a good fight, and were more than willing to accept that their lives would be short with the fighting that led them to death – which was why Mando’ade tended to marry so young, by Core standards – but ensuring survival…there was glory in victory, but kote lo’shebs’ul narit. That was part of his buir’s Supercommando Codex. Oyacyi jaon’yc ori’shya kote.</p><p>It wasn’t the most popular commandment, though it was one Jango had thought on often since Galidraan. If he hadn’t been so focused on victory, on glory, on never backing down, maybe the Jedi wouldn’t have attacked. Maybe they could have talked instead. Then maybe he wouldn’t be the only survivor of Galidraan.</p><p>“So, you’re stuck with the fourth form until…when?” he asked instead of allowing himself to fall back into the spiral of guilt and grief that Galidraan always awakened.</p><p>“A few more years,” Obi-Wan said. “I was an extremely early promotion to Senior Padawan – most early promotions aren’t until sixteen, and the standard is Core legal at eighteen, but I was promoted at fourteen – so I’ll probably be an early Knighting as well. Ten to fifteen years is the average length of an apprenticeship, so I’ll probably be Knighted when I’m twenty-one or so.”</p><p>“What did you do to get promoted four years early?” Jango almost demanded. He wanted to punch Obi-Wan’s jetii teacher again. Who puts a <em>fourteen-year-old</em> at the same standard as an eighteen-year-old, Core-legal adult?</p><p>“A few things,” Obi-Wan said vaguely. “Weren’t you given a command position in the True Mandalorians at fourteen?”</p><p>“I feel like I should reiterate that when I was given responsibility, my buir and the rest of my aliit were <em>right there</em>,” Jango said. “You seem to have been sent off alone a lot more than I was.”</p><p>Obi-Wan shrugged. “I’m precocious. Do you want to see my forms or not?”</p><p>That ended up starting a new routine. They’d wake up, eat the food delivered the previous night, and run exercises until they could hear the guards approaching. One or both of them would end up removed from their cell for a portion of the day. Jango’s trips out of the cell tended to be short. The longest he spent out of the cell was three hours, and that was when Kyr’tsad decided to use him as an executioner in gladiatorial matches repeatedly. Obi-Wan’s trips tended to be longer: while Shabuir Kryze had apparently started governing, he seemed to enjoy forcing Obi-Wan to remain in his presence. She’d come back dressed in gossamer silks, her hair somehow still in the exact hairstyle it had been since the day they’d met.</p><p>“I have to ask,” he finally said. “How is your hair still perfectly intact?”</p><p>Obi-Wan reached up absently to touch her crown of braids.</p><p>“There’s a very specific oil and wax mix I use when putting it up,” she said. “I don’t wash my hair very often – once every three Standard weeks when I’m in-Temple, which I almost never am. It’s – my hair is very long by most standards, and that could put me at a disadvantage if I don’t keep it up. Since it’s so long, hairstyling takes a while, so I was taught as a child how to oil it as I braid and then wax it afterwards. Once my hair’s up, it’s not coming down unless I intentionally take it down. It’s stayed up for a nearly a year before,” she explained.</p><p>“One: what kind of oil and wax can keep hair intact for that long?” Jango demanded. “Two: what in the eternal blue blazes were you <em>doing </em>that kept you from washing your hair for that long?”</p><p>“As to the first, the kind that’s been mixed by Stewjoni Jedi for the past thousand years. We grow both the plants and the bees for the oil and the wax in the Temple Gardens for centuries. As for the second…well, let’s just say my first year as a Padawan was eventful,” Obi-Wan said.</p><p>That…was not a satisfactory answer. Especially since she said her <em>first </em>year was eventful. If she was sold into slavery last year and running around Mandalore this year, what about her <em>first </em>year was eventful? She would have been thirteen! Thirteen-year-olds’ lives were <em>not</em> supposed to be eventful!</p><p>Granted, when he was thirteen, the mess with Korda Six happened and he’d spent the rest of the year Death Watch hunting, so he didn’t really have much room to talk.</p><p>“I’ll tell you about my life when I was thirteen if you tell me about yours?” he offered. He gestured to the empty room around them. “It’s not like we don’t have the time.”</p><p>Obi-Wan plopped down next to him, curling into his side, which meant she was already cold. It usually took her a few hours to sit this close. He knew she still wasn’t fully comfortable with him, but recognized that hypothermia was the greater of the two evils.</p><p>“You first,” she said.</p><p>“Well, I already mentioned my first adult battle,” he said. “I took my verd’goten a week after my thirteenth birthday and the Battle of Korda Six happened two weeks later. I was one of the lieutenants for the basic infantry squad – Jango and the grunts, my buir called us,” he said, a small smile on his face as he remembered his father’s teasing that day.</p><p>“That day was a mess. The next few weeks were a mess – we were trying to track down Kyr’tsad, trying to help Arla – who was desperately searching for mirjahaal after everything she’d been through, everything she’d done, trying to make sure Buir was fully healed and not overdoing things.”</p><p>“He was injured?” Obi-Wan said with a frown.</p><p>“On Korda Six,” Jango confirmed. “There was a traitor, Montross, who injured him before leaving him to die at the hands of Kyr’tsad. He’s fine now, but he was trying to push himself too hard, and I…I wasn’t ready to have to become Mand’alor. I would have, if he’d died, but I didn’t want the job. I <em>don’t</em> want the job, even if I’m the heir. Because if I take the job…”</p><p>“It means your father is dead,” Obi-Wan said understandingly.</p><p>“Exactly,” Jango said. “So we spent the next several months chasing Kyr’tsad, which included several more battles as we hunted each other around the Outer Rim in between jobs. I ended up in charge of the grunts by my fourteenth birthday. I wasn’t supposed to take it at that point, even though I knew I was being groomed for it, but Myles, who was technically in charge, got injured, so I stepped up and was never told to step down.”</p><p>Obi-Wan nodded against his shoulder.</p><p>“I’ve been in that position. They figure you’re trying to swim, and not drowning yet, so they might as well just let you keep swimming.”</p><p>“Metaphorically,” Jango agreed. “I’m not really a fan of swimming normally.”</p><p>Obi-Wan tilted her head slightly, her braided crown brushing against his jaw.</p><p>“Because of the armor, I suppose? I can’t imagine that beskar’gam floats well.”</p><p>“It does not,” Jango agreed. “While I <em>can</em> swim in beskar’gam, it’s generally considered a bad idea without specialized modifications. There are members of aquatic species who become Mando’ade, after all.”</p><p>“I can’t imagine having to learn to swim in armor,” Obi-Wan said. “Though I don’t really remember learning to swim at all. One of my clanmates, Bant, is Mon Calamari. We’ve all been swimming since toddlerhood. I do remember when we taught Quin to swim in the lakes. He came to the Order later than the rest of us, so we had to teach him a bit more.”</p><p>“Jetiise have clans too?” Jango questioned.</p><p>Obi-Wan nodded. “We’re sorted into clans as children. Every child given to the Order is a crècheling until age four, or their species equivalent, at which point they’re sorted into clans. Clans consist of ten to twenty Initiates originally, though the latter is rare. My clan was the only one in our year range to be so large, and one of the only clans to have all of its members make it through the Initiate Trials, which normally take place around age ten. Our clan…our clan is our family, growing up. Our instructor serves the role of mother, our clanmates are our siblings. When Initiates are chosen as Padawans, or go into the Service Corps and gain mentors, our teacher takes the role of father. A Master’s previous Padawans are known as our Padawan-siblings, but they’re more of aunt- or uncle-figures, due to the age difference.”</p><p>“And I thought that Jetiise didn’t have families,” Jango said.</p><p>“Our families may look different, may act different, with us being what we are, but they are family all the same,” Obi-Wan said quietly.</p><p>“I’m sure they’re worried about you,” Jango said, shifting so he could wrap his arm around Obi-Wan’s narrow shoulders.</p><p>“They probably think I’m dead,” Obi-Wan admitted. “That’s what happened the last time I was Force-suppressed, and that was for a much shorter time.”</p><p>“What happened?” Jango asked.</p><p>“I was twelve, almost thirteen, which I suppose leads into the story of why I didn’t have the opportunity to wash my hair for almost a year, since this was the start of it,” Obi-Wan said with a sigh. “I left the Jedi Temple in the fourth Standard month on a transport for Bandomeer – it’s not far, have you heard of it?”</p><p>“I have,” Jango said. “They had some mining issues a few years ago, didn’t they?”</p><p>“That’s right,” Obi-Wan said. “I…was not supposed to be investigating, officially, but I <em>knew</em> that I should be investigating. Since I wasn’t supposed to though, I was alone, which meant I was easy prey for the fallen Jedi who was running the operation and <em>looking</em> for interference. He captured me, put me in a collar similar to this one, and left me in the deep-sea mines as a new slave.”</p><p>Jango turned his head to stare at her. Deep-sea mining was almost always relegated to droids or slaves, because the conditions were <em>horrific</em> and almost no one would willingly work there without being exceedingly desperate. The average lifespan of a <em>free</em> deep-sea miner was under a decade. The lifespan of a slave was much shorter than that. And his mirci’vod had been put through that at <em>twelve</em>.</p><p>“How long were you there?” Jango finally managed to ask.</p><p>“Eight days,” Obi-Wan replied immediately, though her eyes had a faraway look in them. “I spent eight days there. My Master found me. He deactivated the collar, though we couldn’t get it off without the proper tools. We did eventually get it off, saved Bandomeer from the fallen Jedi attempting to blow it up, and then were immediately sent off to the planet Gala to oversee their elections as the planet changed from a monarchy to a democratic government.”</p><p>Jango blinked.</p><p>“On one hand, I’d like to ask for more details about that,” he said slowly. “On the other, I think it would horrify me, so I’ll pass for the moment. Were the elections any calmer?”</p><p>“Somewhat, if we’d actually made it to Gala,” Obi-Wan said, the corners of her lips twitching upwards.</p><p>Jango blinked at her.</p><p>“You’re one of those people with dush’kara, aren’t you?” he asked.</p><p>She frowned.</p><p>“I don’t know that word,” she admitted.</p><p>Of course it was one of the concepts that didn’t translate quite right into Basic.</p><p>“Literally it means ‘bad stars’, but it has the same implications of saying you were kissed by Corellia’s Lady Luck,” he finally said.</p><p>Her face brightened in understanding.</p><p>“Oh! And yes, I’ve been that many times. Bad situations follow me around, I’ve never had an easy mission, but things always turn out, somehow. Master Yoda said it affects my entire lineage, so I shouldn’t be blamed for it, but Master Windu says that I made it worse.”</p><p>“I…I’m sorry then. That sounds awful.”</p><p>She shrugged.</p><p>“It’s never boring, certainly. There’s a Stewjoni curse: ‘May you live in interesting times.’ My friends tell me I must have been cursed twice.”</p><p>The implications of that were not something he wanted to go into.</p><p>“So what happened on the way to Gala?” Jango asked.</p><p>“One of my friends from the mining rig was the brother of our pilot. Their planet needed Jedi assistance, and they were willing to hijack it if need be. Which they did. We landed on Phindar and spent a ten-day leading a revolution against the government and laying the bare-bones for the new government before requesting further Jedi to continue aiding the government set-up while we continued on to Gala. Junior Padawans aren’t supposed to be in warzones, after all, and the first few weeks after a revolution are always very unstable. Gala was mostly calm. We actually <em>foiled</em> a coup there, and made sure that someone was properly elected as the first governor,” Obi-Wan explained.</p><p>“I think you need bodyguards,” Jango said. “And a babysitter. Maybe two. Maybe babysitters trained as bodyguards.”</p><p>Obi-Wan rolled her eyes.</p><p>“I’m perfectly fine, Jango. I don’t need anyone following me around out of some misguided desire to ‘protect’ me.”</p><p>“I don’t think it would be misguided,” Jango said, still a bit stunned by what she’d done at <em>thirteen</em>. “I think it would be sensible, honestly.”</p><p>“It’s completely unnecessary,” Obi-Wan said with a wave of her hand. “I’ve survived this long, haven’t I?”</p><p>“I’m not sure how,” Jango grumbled under his breath.</p><p>Judging from the elbow to his ribs, Obi-Wan still heard him.</p><p>“Do you want to hear the rest of the story or not?” she asked.</p><p>“I’ll be quiet!” Jango promised. “Though, for frame of reference, how much time has gone by?”</p><p>“I turned thirteen just before we left Bandomeer,” Obi-Wan said, “And we left two days after I was rescued from the mining rig. We arrived on Gala a month after we left Bandomeer, and left a ten-day later. We were supposed to go back to the Temple, but were redirected to find a Jedi Master – one of <em>my </em>Master’s clanmates – who the Council had lost contact with. It wasn’t on our way, but we were on the correct side of the galaxy and not busy, and since my Master and Master Tahl were crèchemates, he would have an easier time locating her than anyone else…except, of course, another one of their crèchemates. We ended up on Melidaan, though it was still called Melida/Daan at the time. Have you heard of it?”</p><p>There was something odd about her voice when she said the planet’s name.</p><p>“Can’t say that I have,” Jango said.</p><p>“I wouldn’t recommend it. The planet had been in the midst of a civil war for so long that it practically destroyed itself. There were two factions: the Melida and the Daan. They disagreed on everything so badly that the Republic didn’t have a single name for the planet and had to list both names together. We arrived to find out that Master Tahl had been captured by one of the factions…and there was a third faction on the planet. They called themselves the Young, and they were fighting so that the fighting would stop.”</p><p>“The <em>Young</em>?” Jango asked. He didn’t want to believe the horrified realization creeping in.</p><p>“The Young,” Obi-Wan agreed tiredly. “Not a member older than thirteen. There were children as young as five fighting, though we tried to keep them out of it as much as possible. I spent five months on Melidaan, leading a child army. It was…it was horrific.”</p><p>“Ade should never be forced to fight,” Jango breathed. “Ade are precious.”</p><p>“They are,” Obi-Wan said. “Which is why I had to stay and help them. I had more education than any other person on the planet – after centuries of civil war, a Core-worlder’s primary education was greater than theirs, and I’d completed secondary. I had more training than any other person on the planet. I could help them, so I did. I think I was a member of the Young for a week before being promoted to their top General. It took several months, and a horrific number of lost lives, but we won.”</p><p><em>I </em>led. Not <em>we</em> led. <em>I </em>led. Jango wanted to punch a jetii teacher again.</p><p>“Ob’ika, you were thirteen and leading a child army,” he said, unable to keep the horror from his voice. “<em>Any </em>lives lost was horrific.”</p><p>Obi-Wan ducked her head, and her hands clenched into fists.</p><p>“It was,” she said quietly. “It was horrific, a tragedy, something that never should have happened. But if they hadn’t stood up to fight against the war, they would have been dragged into the war anyways by their parents and they still would have died. Melidaan got Jedi aid, afterwards. The Order couldn’t interfere while it was an internal planetary conflict, but once there was no conflict and the planetary government was requesting aid, it had to be given. There’s been at least one Master out there ever since, helping to build the government and put the planet back together. The children of Melidaan will never again have to raise arms in order to survive.”</p><p>“I can see why you called your thirteenth year was entertaining,” Jango said.</p><p>“And I’m not even done yet,” Obi-Wan said with a sigh. “After I returned to the Jedi Temple with my Master, we learned that there had been attacks made against the Temple. We quickly figured out that the perpetrator was Xanatos, the same fallen Jedi we’d encountered on Bandomeer – the one who enslaved me and sent me to the deep-sea mines. He was the same person who manipulated my clanmate, Bruck Chun, into the situation that led to him falling to his death. After that, my Master and I followed him to his homeworld of Telos. We exposed his crimes to the people of Telos, but instead of facing justice, Xanatos chose to commit suicide again. After returning to the Temple, we had three Standard weeks of down-time before we were sent along with the diplomatic team to the Troiken Summit between the Republic and the Stark Collective.”</p><p>Jango groaned.</p><p>“You’re talking about the summit that ended up being the first battle of the Stark Hyperspace War.”</p><p>“That would be the one,” Obi-Wan agreed. “I fought directly in the First and Second Battles of Qotile, used the Third to sneak <em>out</em> of Mount Avos, the Fourth to fight our way back <em>into</em> Mount Avos, and was part of one of the undercover teams for the Fifth Battle. I turned fourteen between the Fourth and Fifth Battles, but I thought I should finish that story instead of just ending at the year mark.”</p><p>“I assume the Stark War is why you were promoted so early?”</p><p>“Between that and Melida/Daan, yes,” Obi-Wan agreed.</p><p>“I would like to reiterate my statement on the necessity of you having babysitter-bodyguards,” Jango said with a groan.</p><p>He mentally reiterated his desire to punch Obi-Wan’s Jetii teacher in the nose. What she <em>didn’t</em> say about him said a lot, and she hadn’t said much about him at all.</p><p>Their days continued in a similar pattern, blending in together at a rapid rate. Jango only kept track by repeating how many days they’d been cellmates to Obi-Wan multiple times a day.</p><p>It was day twenty-seven by his count when he finally found out how Obi-Wan was hiding the things she was stealing.</p><p>“You’re keeping them in your <em>hair</em>?” he demanded.</p><p>“It’s not like anyone’s looking there,” she said with a bright – mostly faked – smile.</p><p>It was weeks more when Obi-Wan returned, more disgruntled than Jango had ever seen her, dressed in not-at-all-concealing feathers with gossamer silk ‘wings’.</p><p>“He’s keeping me in a birdcage!” she nearly shouted once the guards had left. Jango hoped they’d gone far enough away to either not hear or at least ignore the outburst.</p><p>“He has a cage hanging from the ceiling in his office that he’s forcing me to stay in, dressed in this mockery while he calls me his ‘copikla laarsenaar,’” she said. The Mando’a was a perfect imitation of Shabuir Kryze’s Kalevalan accent and nasally voice.</p><p>“Well, he obviously hasn’t been paying attention,” Jango found himself saying before thinking.</p><p>Obi-Wan’s focus shot to him immediately.</p><p>“What do you mean by that?”</p><p>Her tone was suspiciously even. Jango knew that tone. His sister used it when she was in her <em>worst </em>moods. He would have to tread carefully.</p><p>“You’re no cute songbird, Obi-Wan,” he said, using her full name for once. “And Shabuir Kryze somehow doesn’t see that, despite how many times you’ve already proved it.  Not a laarsenaar. You’re a trasynaar.”</p><p>Her brow furrowed. He’d had plenty of time to teach her everything she <em>didn’t</em> already know about Mando’a, but he didn’t think trasynaar had come up yet.</p><p>“A…firebird?” she asked slowly.</p><p>“A phoenix,” Jango said. “Sometimes called a starbird. Firebird’s another word for it for Mando’a, mostly because of the similarities between star bird, tra senaar, and fire bird, tracyn senaar. All of it blended together to get trasynaar centuries ago. But with your hair, your spirit, your mandokar, what else would you be but a firebird?”</p><p>Obi-Wan simply stared at him for a moment before dropping to the ground with a sigh.</p><p>“I suppose if I have to be anything, a firebird would do. Are there any other Mando’a words that have similar multi-meanings?”</p><p>“None that I can think of off the top of my head,” Jango admitted. “Unless you’re talking about euphemisms.”</p><p>“Let me guess,” Obi-Wan said drily, “Anything involving a sword probably can also mean male genitalia.”</p><p>“Spears too,” Jango said. “I can teach you about regional variations in Mando’a, if you’d please.”</p><p>“Please,” Obi-Wan said. “I hear enough about kade, kale, and beve with Kyr’tsad.”</p><p>Jango winced at that, before rapidly changing the subject.</p><p>“First thing you should know, is that in Concordian, which was my <em>first</em> language before proper Mando’a, senaar somehow became benaar, but trasynaar is still trasynaar.”</p><p>“Aren’t exceptions to the rules fun?” Obi-Wan grumbled. “At least this is still less complicated than the mess that is Galactic Standard Basic.”</p><p>“It certainly is that,” Jango agreed immediately.</p><p>They’d been cellmates for fifty-nine days when Obi-Wan returned to their cell looking worried.</p><p>“They’re planning something,” she told him. “The Festival of Life starts tomorrow and they’ve got something planned for you. And something for me. I don’t know what, but they seem excited, and that’s never a good sign.”</p><p>Jango reached out to grasp her hand in his own.</p><p>“Whatever it is, it may be the opportunity we’ve been waiting for.”</p><p>Obi-Wan was relatively sure she had everything they needed to disable their collars and get out of their chains. She’d managed to steal things from guards, from Shabuir Kryze’s office, from everywhere she’d been dragged as long as Shabuir Kryze was forcing her to be his toy. Sometimes her ill-gotten gains were kept in the scraps of fabric Shabuir Kryze thought were clothes. When she didn’t have that option, she’d concealed things in her hair, which Jango personally found both terrifying and attractive.</p><p>There was no doubt that his mirci’vod was beautiful. Even malnourished and only cleaned by someone dumping water on her, she was still beautiful. It was no wonder that Shabuir Kryze wanted her. But her mandokar, her mind, her spirit – everything that Shabuir Kryze ignored – just made her even more attractive.</p><p>Not that he’d ever say so. Obi-Wan was supposed to be safe with him. The shabuir and Kyr’tsad were hurting her. He was supposed to be safe, so she’d be safe with him. He wouldn’t ever say anything that might make her uncomfortable. It had taken over a month for her to stop tensing every night when they huddled for warmth.</p><p>“It may be,” Obi-Wan agreed. “But still, be careful.”</p><p>“I will,” Jango agreed.</p><p>And he’d pray to the Ka’ra that they could turn Kryze’s plans back against him.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Mando'a Translations:<br/>Tuure Ehn, Resol, Ta’raysh Cuir, Ad’eta E’tad, Cur’eta Rayshe’a, bal She’eta She’cu – Days Three, Six, Fourteen, Twenty-Seven, Forty-Five, and Fifty-Nine<br/>shabuir - extremely insulting version of 'jerk'<br/>beskar - Mandalorian iron<br/>ade - children<br/>Ob'ika - diminutive of Obi-Wan<br/>jetii'kad - lightsaber<br/>kote lo'shebs'ul narit - You can keep your glory (literally, Put glory into your anus).<br/>Oyaycyi jaon'yc ori'shya kote - Living is more important than glory.<br/>jetii - Jedi, singular<br/>aliit - clan<br/>verd'goten - warrior birth; the Mandalorian right of passage into adulthood.<br/>buir - parent (in this case, father)<br/>mirjahaal - peace of mind<br/>Kyr'tsad - Death Watch<br/>beskar'gam - Mandalorian armor<br/>Mando'ade - Mandalorians<br/>Jetiise - the Jedi (plural); referring to every Jedi instead of just multiple Jedi<br/>mirci'vod - cellmate, literally 'prisoner-sibling'<br/>dush'kara - bad stars, bad luck, the opposite of jate'kara<br/>copikla - cute, used for animals and babies, NOT women<br/>laarsenaar - songbird<br/>trasynaar - firebird/starbird/phoenix<br/>tra senaar - star bird<br/>tracyn senaar - fire bird<br/>mandokar - the right stuff<br/>kade - swords<br/>kale - blades<br/>beve - spears<br/>Ka'ra - stars/ancient kings</p><p>Honestly, they were supposed to start their escape at end of this chapter, but then Obi-Wan got chatty. So this is the end of this fic, and the circumstances of their escape will occur in their entirety in the next fic.</p>
        </blockquote><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I have messed with both Jango and Obi-Wan's ages, along with other events so that they still happened at appropriate times in their lives. In this AU, Jango was born in 944 ARR, with Arla born in 938 and Obi-Wan in 949. Jango was adopted by Jaster Mereel in 952. The Battle of Korda Six took place in 957, with different results than in canon.  Obi-Wan was taken as a Padawan in 962, left the Order on Melida/Daan the same year, returned to the Order in 963, and had a seemingly never-ending stream of missions since then leading up to the present day. The Battle of Galidraan took place in the 1st month of 966, though it was just Jango and a large group of True Mandalorians, not all the True Mandalorians. The Great Clan Wars began a month later after the truth of Galidraan came out. Obi-Wan explained the rest of the timeline since then.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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